But because global warming allows the air to hold more moisture,
precipitation increases in some areas. This precipitation, in the
form of snow is increasing ice mass in certain areas of
Antarctica.

Some researchers have suggested that increased snowfall over the
ice sheet could slow the ice loss.

While it's true that some areas of the ice sheet are indeed
gaining mass (and so has the center of Greenland, where
ice depth has been steadily increasing about two inches per
year over the past decade) this doesn't mean it will help stop
the melt.

"We now know that snowfall in Antarctica will not save us from
sea-level rise," says study researcher Anders Levermann, of
Potsdam University and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research in Germany. Their study was published today, Dec. 12, in
the journal
Nature.

Using simulations the researchers were able to model the effect
of the increased precipitation. They found that future ice loss
is increased up to three times due to the weight of the extra
snow. The snow is placing a massive amount of pressure on top the
ice sheets, breaking them, and pushing them out to sea where they
melt into the world's oceans even faster.

"Sea level is rising — that is a fact. Now we need to understand
how quickly we have to adapt our coastal infrastructure; and that
depends on how much CO2 we keep emitting into the
atmosphere," Levermann said in a press release from the
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

This could have an impact on the reliability of our sea-level
rise predictions, which impact several low-lying areas of coastal
land and
could put some islands underwater. The
most recent projections by the United Nations' climate change
panel report that sea levels are rising at an annual rate of 0.12
inches per year. This most recent study may have to increase sea
level rise predictions which have already been increased since
the IPCC calculated the rise at 0.08 inches per year in 2007.